Falling Backwards

1 March - 9 June 2013

As the University of East Anglia celebrates its 50 year anniversary, Falling Backwards celebrates the iconic architecture of the university campus.

Through a series of contemplative, performative and repetitive acts, artist Ruth Proctor challenges relationships between the temporary and the permanent, and between the past, present and future. Situating the UEA campus as a learning space and using this as her stage, Proctor's performance of methodical, repetitive and solitary acts is captured on screen. The process of filming and photographing the work as it took place transforms momentary occurrences into permanent records of time and space.

Falling Backwards highlights and responds to the striking modernist architecture of its campus. Denys Lasdun's Grade II listed “ziggurats” and Norman Foster's landmark building, the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts are both reflected upon within the exhibition. Curated by the current cohort of Museum Studies postgraduate students the exhibition is rooted firmly in the university and its campus life.

Ruth Proctor is an internationally renowned artist. In 2012 she exhibited “If the sky falls” at the Whitechapel Gallery, London and “Weight of Air” at Ham House, Richmond-upon-Thames. These projects, along with Falling Backwards, draw upon Proctor's interest in the rethinking of the physical and temporal whilst also considering the legacy of Modernism. This is the first time Proctor has exhibited in East Anglia.